Assistant Professor

English

TDPG College

Jaunpur  Uttar Pradesh, India 

John Galsworthy was one of the greatest dramatists of the school of realism and naturalism in drama, and played a conspicuous part in popularising the Problem Play in the twentieth century. He was a dramatist of social life and concentrated his attention on problems facing us in society. He found his material and inspiration in the world of everyday life and affairs, and described himself as 'a painter of pictures, a maker of things, as sincerely as I know how, imaginated out of what I have seen and felt. Leaving aside The Little Dream, he maintained a realistic attitude in his dramas consistently and it was his avowed object as a dramatist to deal with the actual facts and conditions of contemporary life, instead of making excursions into the realms of fancy and romance like the Scottish dramatist Barrie. Galsworthy was wedded to the actual, and tried to present as faithfully as he could the phenomena of life and character without fear, favour or prejudice. He made no attempt to glorify and embellish the dreary realities of a dull life with the false colours of romance, but strove to create an illusion of actual life on the stage "as to compel the spectator to pass through an experience of his own, to think and make and write with people he saw thinking, talking, and moving in front of him." His work is rooted in contemporary life and provides a vivid and fairly accurate picture of the conditions and society of the times in which he lived. He has defined art as "the perfect expression of self in contact with the world", and his dramatic art at least is based on his reaction to the world at large.

Galsworthy is the critic and the interpreter of contemporary English life in his dramas. In his plays we have a fine discussion of the problems of marriage, sex relationship, labour disputes, administration of law, solitary confinement, caste feeling or class prejudice. In The Silver Box and Justice, he deals with the problem of justice and the cruel working of the legal machinery. In Strife he concentrates on the conflict between capital and labour, and in The Skin Game he brings out the conflict between the landed gentry and the new capitalistic class. The main plays of Galsworthy deal with social problems. These varied problems of our social life are treated by Galsworthy in relation with the social organism as a whole. Ibsen had also dealt with problems in his dramas, but he treated social problems in relation to the individual or the family. Shaw occasionally dealt with the problems of the individual in relation with society, but Galsworthy always discussed problems in relation to social organism.

His Impartiality and Detachment

Galsworthy deals with the problems of life with impartiality. He is an artist and takes a detached view of the problems, though by probing deeply we can feel his sympathy with one side or the other. But as a rule he examines both sides of the case with equal carefulness and presents them without expressing any opinion. He strikes the note of impartiality in the following words, "Let me try to eliminate any bias and see the whole thing as should an umpire, one of those pure things in white coats, purged of all the prejudices, passions and predilections of mankind. Let me have no temperament for the time being. Only from an impersonal point of view, there be such a thing, am I going to get even approximately at the truth." While presenting the picture of contemporary life, he keeps himself in the background. He does not allow his own personality to intrude into his dramas. In his plays he has always tried to present both sides of a problem with strict impartiality. To maintain balance and equipoise in his dramatic technique, he is not swept off his feet by emotion. He might be emotionally sympathetic to this character or that, to this class or the other, but as a dramatist he successfully checks the temptation of treating any particular character with undue partiality.

In The Silver Box Jones, an unemployed young man, steals a silver purse in a fit of drunkenness, from Jack Barthwick, the idle son of a wealthy Liberal M. P. We can hardly blame Jones for this trifling crime when unemployment was prevalent everywhere and when even Jack Barthwick himself could steal the silver purse from an unknown lady and go unpunished by law. But a strictly impartial judge like Galsworthy cannot allow this crime to go unpunished, though he allows Jones to have his full say and hints at the fact that there were two laws prevalent at that time, one for the rich and the other for the poor, and Jones becau e he is poor, cannot hope for that justice which he could easily buy if he were rich. "If Galsworthy had been made of cheaper clay he would have made the Barthwicks unspeakable villains, and the Joneses the innocent victims. But old Barthwick is a well meaning man, and Jones is a scoundrel and a wife-beater. There is good and bad on both sides. The balance is made as fair as the dramatist can make it."

In Strife also the balance is kept intact with perfect impartiality. The dramatist presents both sides of the case. He presents the case for Capital, and Labour with strict impartiality. In the play the scales are held dispassionately and the readers only feel the futility of the tragic pride and prejudice on both sides; the side of Anthony, the capitalist and Roberts, the labour leader.

Instances can be multiplied to show Galsworthy's impartial approach to the problems of life. As an artist he kept his impartiality admirably well, with the result that his plays seem inconclusive. There is no finality about them.

Galsworthy's Sympathy and Humanity

Though Galsworthy presents his situations and characters with impartiality, yet, if we go deep down in his plays, we can detect his sympathy for the down-trodden and the underdog in society. His sympathy extends even to animals. He has a Tolstoyan reverence for all life. Once the veil of this intellectual impartiality is lifted, the humanist, Galsworthy, is clearly revealed, voicing his strongest protest against the cruelty and injustice of our society. The warmth of feeling could hardly be chilled by the cold touch of the necessities of dramatic art. The humanistic approach to life and its problems is evident in almost all the plays of Galsworthy and the best example of it can be given from Justice. Galsworthy's sympathy is evidently with Falder. In the defence of the counsel for Falder, we feel the voice of Galsworthy himself. It appears to us that the dramatist has put off his lawyer's gown and is passionately appealing to consider the case of the accused with compassion. The judge may turn a deaf ear to the sentimental appeal of Mr. Frome, the lawyer for Falder, but it will never fail to find a sympathetic echo in the hearts of the readers and the audience, because the voice of the dramatist is presented through Frome. In this respect it is interesting to compare Galsworthy with Bernard Shaw. Shaw has actually more imaginative sympathy than is usually conceded to him, but his satiric gift, his genius for derision causes him to appear cynical. Shaw is carried away by his own views to such an extent that he fails to enter adequately into the view point of others. Galsworthy in never guilty of this lapse of dramatic sympathy and understanding. Where Shaw would scoff and curse, Galsworthy would wince and ultimately find himself constrained to bless.

Shaw's intellectualism runs to witty satire and attack; Galsworthy's emotionalism leads rather to charity and sympathy and toleration.

"Underlying the plot of each of Galsworthy's plays, there is a broad current of intense humanity which preserves his work from the ravages of time. Strife is not an ephemeral pamphlet but a study of the spirit of diehardism, that robs men of their discretion, warps their judgment, and leads to bitter conflict and suffering. Justice deals with the blindness of the judicial system; it was blind in the Greeks and Romans, and there is no reason to suppose it will not be blind in future. The system may change, but the lack of understanding and foresight shown by common humanity will persist, and lead to suffering such as was experienced by Falder."

Galsworthy's moral purpose and reformative tone

Galsworthy had infinite sympathy for his downtrodden and crushed characters. He was pained by the conditions prevailing in society, and it was his hearty desire to reform the evils of our social life. But Galsworthy could not be a blatant propagandist like Shaw. He suggested reform in his dramas, but the tone of the reformer is hushed and muffled. That he intended to introduce reform in society through his plays cannot be gainsaid. There is hardly any one of his plays which does not convey a message or a lesson. There is a moral note in each one of his plays. He believed that every work of art should have a moral or a 'Spire of meaning.' "A drama", he has himself pointed out, "must be so shaped as to have a spire of meaning. Every grouping of life and character has its inherent moral and the business of the dramatist is to pose the group as to bring that moral poignantly to the light of day." Didacticism was the main spring of his art. His didacticism is not obstrusive. His dramas have, strictly speaking, not a moral which may be obtrusive but a spire of meaning which develops itself as naturally from the drama as a spire completes the structure of a Gothic church. The public gets this meaning, not through a coarse melodramatic opposition of villain and hero (as in the older dramas), not even through any intellectual argument, but through emotional sympathy with characters presented in such a way as to appeal to the spectator's sense of truth and justice.

In Strife the moral is that we should not be adamant and head strong in our view but should seek honourable compromise over issues which cannot be resolved without sacrifice of principle. In Loyalties he denounces racial prejudice and pleads for just social treatment to all classes of people in society. In The Silver Box he desires to avoid the evils of unemployment and pleads for sympathy for the waifs and derelicts of society and so on.

His Craftsmanship

Galsworthy is a great craftsman in his dramatic art. He knows the art of plot-construction, and of giving to his plot a keen sense of dramatic effectiveness. He manages his plots with economy, restraint and concentration. Every word beats on the action or reveals character or suggests the attitude which Galsworthy desires his spectators to take. The same artistic thrift is seen in his stage directions also. Stage directions in modern drama are always very important, but some dramatists, like Shaw, carry their stage directions to the length of an essay. errs in this respect. He never says too much, but at the same time, he never omits any single detail which is important.

Galsworthy's dramatic effectiveness

We do not, however, claim for Galsworthy the Shakespearean genius of portraying that 'double-conflict', conflict with the elemental forces and simultaneously conflict with conscience, but nevertheless, this much credit must be given to Galsworthy that he has succeeded in creating some very fine dramatic moments by a few subtle hints and suggestions. Such dramatic moments are present in all his plays. In Strife the two unbending leaders of Capital and Labour respectively are deserted by their followers to force a compromise. They stare at each other and there is in their looks a dramatic intensity that keeps us spell bound for some- time. Let us note the words-

Roberts- "Then you are no longer Chairman of this company? (Breaking into half-mad laughter) Ah ha-ah ha, ha! They've thrown you, over-thrown their chairman A ha-ha! (with a sudden dreadful calm). So they've done us both down, Mr. Anthony ?"

"Anthony rises with an effort. He turns to Roberts, who looks at him. They stand several seconds, gazing at each other, fixedly; Anthony lifts his hand, as though to salute, but lets it fall. The expression of Robert's face changes from hostility to wonder "

Play of Irony

In Galsworthy's dramatic art dramatic irony as well as irony of life are presented with great care and astuteness. There is a note of irony in all his plays. It has become a part of Galsworthy's art. For example, in Justice the machinery which the Law has devised for dispensing justice, results in producing marked injustice. In Strife Capital and Labour come into collision causing untold suffering and wastage to all concerned. When both parties are thoroughly exhausted, they strive at a compromise, the terms of which are exactly the same as had been proposed before the quarrel began and which had been contemptuously rejected by both the parties then. Tench the Secretary, reveals the irony of the situation in the concluding lines of the drama.

Tench (staring at Harness)-Suddenly excited. Do you know, Sir- these terms, they are the very same we drew up together you and I, and put to both sides before the fight began? All this-all this--and what for?

Harness (In a slow grim voice) That's where the fun comes in.

Summing up

The general effect left on our mind after reading Galsworthy's play is one of of despair and groom. A dramatic world is mainly grey. His tragic plays are for the most part serious, even sombre. But he is not a pessimist; there is a ray of hope that the lot of human beings would be better in the world to come. He believes that the cause of tragedy in social life lies in failure of sympathy and imagination, and he hopes that human lot is capable of amelioration.

References

1. Life and Letters of J. Galsworthy Ed. by H. V. Marrot

2. J. Galsworthy: 'Some Platitudes concerning Drama', The Inn of Tranquility

3. J. W. Marriott: Modern Drama

4. Dr. R. C. Gupta: The Problem Play